12-04-2025
Obsessed with 'The Last of Us' Season 2? Try these 8 post-apocalyptic, zombie books
Obsessed with 'The Last of Us' Season 2? Try these 8 post-apocalyptic, zombie books
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Need a show to binge? These are the must watch shows this spring.
USA TODAY's TV critic Kelly Lawler breaks down the best TV shows you don't to want to miss this spring.
Two years have felt too long to be without a new season of 'The Last of Us,' and fans of the post-apocalyptic drama are ready to find out what's next for Pedro Pascal and Bella Ramsey's characters in Season 2.
Plus, if you're one of the fans who loves the video game as much as the show adaptation, you're likely curious to see what cast newcomers like Kaitlyn Dever, Jeffrey Wright (who voiced Isaac in the game's 'Part II') and Catherine O'Hara bring to the show.
Expect this season to be 'gory and gorgeous, viciously violent and vividly brought to life,' our reviewer writes.
Books like 'The Last of Us'
Even though the unlikely duo will be back on our screens Sundays, the week between each episode will probably still feel as long as Joel and Ellie's journey to Wyoming. Luckily, we've got plenty of stories to keep the post-apocalyptic energy going.
These eight novels have similar tales of survival, finding community at the end of the world and zombielike creatures like the 'infected.' Or, if you're looking to deep dive into your fungi fascination, try something like 'Entangled Life' by Merlin Sheldrake, which explores the mysterious role these organisms play in our lives.
'Station Eleven' by Emily St. John Mandel
Set 15 years after a pandemic decimated most of the world's population, 'Station Eleven' follows a troupe of traveling Shakespeare performers who bring their art to the few remote survivor communities. But everything changes when they arrive at an outpost carrying a violent prophet who threatens anyone who tries to leave. This dystopian story is immersive and unputdownable, shifting back and forth in time to paint a picture of both the lead-up and the aftermath of society's destruction.
'The Girl With All the Gifts' by M.R. Carey
This 2014 sci-fi thriller is perfect for 'The Last of Us' fans who love Ellie. Set after the apocalypse, 'The Girl With All the Gifts' opens on a classroom filled with closely guarded infected children – zombies who have retained human intelligence. Every day, Melanie, a student heralded as a 'little genius,' is strapped to a chair with a gun held to her head. She's wheeled into a classroom with other kids like her are taught lessons for a world they'll never inhabit.
'Parable of the Sower' by Octavia E. Butler
If you liked following Joel and Ellie's journey across America in 'The Last of Us,' you should check out Butler's classic dystopian 'Parable of the Sower.' Often heralded as prophetic, this novel centers on a young girl with a debilitating form of hyperempathy. She lives with her family in a gated community, sheltered from the chaos and violence of a society collapsing from climate and economic crises. But she'll soon be on her own, fighting for survival with a new vision for humanity.
'The Road' by Cormac McCarthy
McCarthy's Pulitzer Prize-winning novel captures a parent-child dynamic like the one between Joel and Ellie. It follows a father and son on a journey across a ravaged, post-apocalyptic America on their way to the coast. Defending themselves from bandits and scavenging what little food they can find, 'The Road' interrogates how far love can travel in a world without hope.
'How High We Go in the Dark' by Sequoia Nagamatsu
If the post-apocalyptic world-building and backstory of 'The Last of Us' is what gets you, try 'How High We Go in the Dark.' This novel follows a cast of interwoven characters over hundreds of years during and in the aftermath of a climate plague unleashed after researchers in the Arctic Circle study the preserved remains of a girl who died of an ancient virus.
'Hell Followed With Us' by Andrew Joseph White
Ellie fans will also like the protagonist in this young adult novel. In a destroyed future, a 16-year-old trans boy runs from a fundamentalist cult that's infected him with a bioweapon. He finds community in a ragtag group of teens who rescue him when he's attacked. Can he hide his biggest secret from them – that the bioweapon is mutating him into a potentially world-destroying monster?
'Annihilation' by Jeff VanderMeer
If you love the danger and discovery of the unknown in 'The Last of Us,' try 'Annihilation' and the 'Southern Reach' trilogy by Jeff VanderMeer. This sci-fi follows a group of four women – an anthropologist, a surveyor, a psychologist and a biologist – on an expedition to map and observe Area X. All other journeys into the overgrown, desolate island have ended in disaster or death. The researchers will have to make it out alive and uncontaminated.
'Zone One' by Colson Whitehead
This dystopian novel from the author of 'The Nickel Boys' follows the aftermath of a deadly plague, where armed forces have reclaimed parts of Manhattan and civilian sweeper units clear the city of feral zombies. 'Zone One' is the aftermath of the downfall, as one sweeper deals with 'Post Apocalyptic Stress Disorder' and comes to terms with a new world.
Want more dystopian?: 10 books similar to '1984' by George Orwell
Clare Mulroy is USA TODAY's Books Reporter, where she covers buzzy releases, chats with authors and dives into the culture of reading. Find her on Instagram, subscribe to our weekly Books newsletter or tell her what you're reading at cmulroy@
